Tiger kickers split with Southwestern

By Steve Sell

September 23, 2017

Kendric Warren

Central Christian College’s men’s soccer team certainly has made the most of its non-conference schedule.

With a 3-1 win over KCAC member Southwestern here Friday, the Tigers improved to 7-1 as they prepare to delve into conference play. Central opened the season with a loss to Bethel, but has been unblemished since then.

“Today was just one of those days where your opponent makes the game tough," Central coach Aaron Hoxie said. "You just have to stay consistent and eventually success will come. We certainly didn't make the game easy on ourselves when we handed them a breakaway goal, but that's soccer, those things happen. I was happy with the character we showed to stay composed, get the third goal, and essentially ride out the rest of the game."

Matias Nunez scored two goals for the Tigers and Reece Stewart had the other. Assists went to Omar Salgado, Jayke Maples and Joshua Taylor.

Things get a whole lot tougher for the Tigers when they open Sooner Athletic Conference play on Saturday at No. 21-ranked Wayland Baptist.

• Southwestern women 4, Central 1 — The Tigers’ offensive problems continued, but this time the defense also sprang some leaks.

“We haven't found a way to break out of our funk, clearly,"Central coach Scott Fogarty said. "We did make some small strides in being more physical in our battles, but we're still a step slow and a second late to our challenges. We allowed the game to get stretched in midfield, which favored them in the first half and it caused us issues on both ends of the field. After the break, we made some changes and I thought and competed better but it was too late. I don't want to take anything away from our opponents because they obviously played better than us, but we feel like we're beating ourselves and haven't come close to our potential this year."

Kyla Hughes, off an assist from Shannon Huseca, scored the only Central goal.